Apple to run iPhone SDK event next week

Apple's big push for iPhone software

Apple will next week host an event to tout the Apple iPhone's software development kit (SDK).

In an invitation to reporters and bloggers Apple said the even will also contain "some exciting new enterprise features" related to the iPhone.

Although the company was expected to roll out the SDK this month - CEO Steve Jobs said last October that the kit would reach developers in February 2008 - rumours have circulated recently that it would be delayed by as long as three weeks. It's unclear whether Apple will release the iPhone SDK next Thursday at the event, which will be held on the Apple campus in Cupertino, California.

Jobs' SDK timeline was part of the 180-degree turn Apple took last Autumn when, after months of saying that the iPhone was off limits to outside developers, the company announced that it would open the smartphone-iPod hybrid to third-party programs.

Then, Jobs defended the original decision to ban all but web-based applications from its phone by repeating earlier concerns about security.

A month before the iPhone's June debut, for example, Jobs had said, "The more [third-party applications] you add, the more your phone crashes. No one's perfect, and we'd sure like our phone not to crash once a day."

The enterprise-related news out of next week's event is also a mystery, although it could involve IBM's Lotus Notes, the second-most-popular email software system in corporations. More than a month ago, reports made the rounds of an impending release of Lotus Notes for the iPhone. But Lotusphere, IBM's annual conference that focuses on the Lotus community, came and went in January without any announcement.